Allowing a user to send and receive electronic mail (e-mail) to and from a facsimile machine can save the labor of the user and resources to perform facsimile communication. To do this, various methods have been proposed. Various types of systems are used to transmit e-mail through a network. To transmit a facsimile message over a network, gateway means are typically used. For example, when e-mail is sent to a mail server by specifying its address in a format such as “xxx-xxx-xxxx@fax,” the mail server determines that the e-mail should be sent as a facsimile message and transfers it to gateway means for transmitting the facsimile messages, instead of a client on another network. The gateway means converts the e-mail into an image that can be faxed, then transmit the facsimile transmission image containing the e-mail information over telephone lines such as an analog or ISDN line to a facsimile machine connected to the telephone or ISDN line.
When e-mail is converted into an image for facsimile transmission in the gateway means, font information and a table in the e-mail are transformed into an appropriate size image such as A4, letter or legal size, then faxed. Although the gateway means is configured to produce the image as faithful to the original mail as possible, it may not always expanded to a facsimile transmission image exactly the same as the original e-mail for subsequent facsimile transmission, depending on the conditions under which the mail is generated.
Conventionally, when e-mail is faxed over a network, means for previewing the image file to be sent is not used. Therefore, the user who performs facsimile transmission over a network often experiences trouble. For examples, a new line or page may begin at an unintended position and the facsimile transmission image sent to the recipient may not have the appearance that the sender has expected. FIG. 15 shows a facsimile image of prior art that was sent with an appearance different from that of originally created in e-mail.
Among prior-art systems for converting e-mail into a facsimile transmission image and faxing it is an apparatus described in Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. 10-164124, field as U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/xxx,xxx on XXXX xx, 2000, that extracts e-mail from a post office of an e-mail server, converts it into a facsimile transmission image, automatically dials the facsimile number of the recipient of the facsimile transmission, and sends it to the recipient's facsimile machine. Although this apparatus can send e-mail from the mail server to the facsimile machine, it does not allow for previewing the facsimile transmission image converted from the e-mail. It does not allow for previewing or checking the facsimile transmission image actually transmitted, before the transmission.
Also, in the prior art, a facsimile-based e-mail apparatus has been disclosed that expands a image file received as an attached file of e-mail, re-compresses it into a data format that can be received by a facsimile machine, and sends the image file by following a facsimile transmission procedure. The facsimile-based e-mail apparatus allows the image file attached to the e-mail to be sent as an image that can be received by the facsimile machine through the facsimile transmission procedure. However, this facsimile-based e-mail apparatus does not allow the facsimile transmission image converted as described above to be previewed before facsimile transmission.
Also in the prior art, fax-e-mail gateway means has been disclosed that allow a facsimile image to be automatically distributed through e-mail transmission without adding something special such as an electronic distribution form sheet. This fax-e-mail gateway means allows an image data received through facsimile to be transferred as a file attached to e-mail. However, it does not allow the facsimile transmission image converted from the e-mail as described above to be previewed and checked before fax transmission.
Also in the prior art, a communication apparatus has been disclosed which is configured to convert received e-mail into facsimile data and send it to predetermined destinations in a such a way that the e-mail or facsimile message delivered to a user's office can be transferred to the user's apparatus of a different medium at a place away from the office where the user is staying. However, this communication system does not allow the facsimile transmission image to be previewed before the facsimile transmission as described earlier.
On the other hand, a conventional facsimile communication system using a printer driver typically employs a method in which a document is written within an application such as a word processor and faxed through a print menu within the application. For such a system, it has been proposed that a function for previewing the facsimile transmission image be added to an application such as a word processor.
The system that faxes e-mail over a network through gateway means allows a facsimile transmission image to be previewed before facsimile transmission. However, it is not necessarily efficient to install a facsimile driver having a preview function in a number of clients individually.
As described above, the above-mentioned conventional systems for faxing e-mail do not allow for previewing a facsimile transmission image to be sent. The above-mentioned method proposed in order to allow this preview, in which the client user previously create a facsimile transmission image, checks it, then attaches this file to e-mail to send to gateway means, involves installing a new printer driver in a number of clients and therefore is not always efficient.
With the method in which the facsimile transmission image is previously created and checked, then the image file is attached to e-mail to send to a gateway means, it requires that the client user create the facsimile transmission image file each time the user wants to send a facsimile message. As a result, the simplicity and quickness of directly faxing e-mail cannot adequately be achieved.
The conventional method in which a facsimile transmission image is created previously and checked, then this image file is attached to e-mail to send to the gateway means poses a problem when both of the facsimile address and the e-mail address are specified as the destination of the e-mail. That is, the user who received it as e-mail may have a feeling of strangeness because the body of the mail is contained only in the attached file.
On the other hand, for a user who receives mail as a facsimile, the facsimile transmission image sent by the conventional system that sends a facsimile from within an e-mail application would contain both of the destination address for e-mail (“EEEE FFFF/Japan/GGG/@HHH.jp” in FIG. 16) and that for facsimile. Such a facsimile image containing the destination address for e-mail together with that for facsimile may give a feeling of strangeness to the user who received it as a facsimile.